TODAY IN HISTORY

1693

A charter was granted for the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg in the Virginia Colony.

1910

The Boy Scouts of America was incorporated.

1922

President Warren G. Harding had a radio installed in the White House.

1924

The first execution by gas in the United States took place at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City as Gee Jon, a Chinese immigrant convicted of murder, was put to death.

1952

Queen Elizabeth II proclaimed her accession to the British throne following the death of her father, King George VI.

1960

Work began on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located on Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street in Los Angeles.

1965

Eastern Air Lines Flight 663, a DC-7, crashed shortly after takeoff from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport; all 84 people on board were killed. The Supremes’ record “Stop! In the Name of Love!” was released by Motown.

1968

Three Black students were killed in a confrontation between demonstrators and highway patrolmen at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg in the wake of protests over a whites-only bowling alley.

1971

NASDAQ, the world’s first electronic stock exchange, held its first trading day.

1973

Senate leaders named seven members of a select committee to investigate the Watergate scandal, including its chairman, Democrat Sam J. Ervin of North Carolina.

2007

Model, actor and tabloid sensation Anna Nicole Smith died in Hollywood, Florida, at age 39 of an accidental drug overdose.

2020

The U.S. Embassy in Beijing said a 60-year-old U.S. citizen who’d been diagnosed with the coronavirus had died on Feb. 5 in Wuhan; it was apparently the first American fatality from the virus.

2013

A massive storm packing hurricane-force winds and blizzard conditions began sweeping through the Northeast, dumping nearly 2 feet of snow on New England and knocking out power to more than a half a million customers.